


Secret Meeting

by ClaraxBarton



Series: Lies We Lead [7]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Captain America Steve Rogers, Established Relationship, Feelings, Idiots in Love, M/M, Sex worker Clint Barton, Wax Play, kind of, modern Clint Barton
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-24
Updated: 2020-05-24
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:13:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24359368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClaraxBarton/pseuds/ClaraxBarton
Summary: For fourteen months, things have been fine.Steve sees Clint on Thursday nights, and hem gets to pretend, for just a few hours, and that's fine. That's enough.Then the rules changed.
Relationships: Clint Barton/Steve Rogers
Series: Lies We Lead [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1518758
Comments: 22
Kudos: 164





	Secret Meeting

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Flowerparrish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flowerparrish/gifts).



> Starting off your birthday week with this tangled bit of angst and fluff, @flowerparrish
> 
> Beta read by the amazing Ro

Steve had seen Clint in a suit before. 

Steve had  _ first _ seen Clint in a suit - something dark and well-fitted, with a lavender shirt and dark purple tie and polished black loafers that slipped on and off with ease and almost put a hole in the wall when Steve tossed one over his shoulder that first night, that first time, when Clint had let him help him undress and Steve had been too focused on memorizing the taste of Clint’s lips and skin and sweat to care about anything else.

But that had been a year ago. More than. Fourteen months ago. Fifty-six Thursdays ago. Forty-two weekly meetings ago.

It wasn’t that Steve had forgotten that Clint looked good in a suit, wasn’t like he thought Clint only existed either naked or in soft jeans and softer t-shirts. But…

But he never thought he would have occasion to be reminded that Clint looked good in a suit. Never thought he would have the opportunity to see Clint anywhere other than their hotel room.

Yet, he here was. Here they were.

Clint was here, at Stark Tower, in the large reception hall - and yeah, Steve’s mind still boggled over Tony’s home/work/headquarters/place having multiple reception halls - dressed in a tuxedo and holding a glass of champagne and smiling that  _ smile _ . The one he wore when something genuinely amused him, the one Steve worked hard to earn. And-

Steve was staring - was glaring, probably, but he hadn’t been noticed yet. Clint was too busy, shoulder-to-shoulder with a dark-haired man and two dark-haired women, all chatting and familiar and easy with each other.

Tony had more or less made Steve come to this thing - a fundraiser, and Tony knew how much Steve hated these things, but Tony also knew which buttons to press and ‘scholarships for children of immigrants’ was an easy button to push. It was the first time Steve had left DC for something other than work since moving there a year and a half ago, and wasn’t that… weird. 

Almost as weird as the collision of Steve’s private life and his public life. Clint here, in Stark Tower. Clint here, smiling and laughing and completely unaware of Steve.

It made his skin crawl, made the bow-tie at his throat feel too tight and-

Clint was mid-laugh, head tossed back, when their eyes caught.

Steve got to see Clint’s eyes go wide, got to see the color fade from his face and his lips go slack. Got to see him shut down completely.

It made his gut clench and twist.

Clint put a hand out, touched the man at his side and leaned close to say something before he stepped away, before he headed right for Steve.

He wasn’t sure why he did it, but Steve was moving before he even consciously decided to.

He turned his back on Clint and walked away, straight to the exterior balcony that, this time of year, was empty and cold and dark.

Steve barely managed to draw in an icy breath before Clint was there, reaching for his shoulder and saying his name.

“Steve-”

“I thought you didn’t do the boyfriend experience.”

The words were out, bitten and bitter and brittle, and they landed like a bomb between them.

Clint’s hand fell away from Steve’s shoulder, back to his side, and he looked at Steve with an expression Steve had never, not once, seen on Clint’s face before.

Pity.

And- fuck.

_ Fuck _ .

It made Steve’s jaw hurt, his head pound and his stomach roil. He didn’t want Clint’s pity. Just as much as he didn’t want to see Clint standing with that dark-haired man and laughing at whatever  _ he _ said, Steve didn’t want to see Clint look at him like that.

Steve felt small, felt like the sick, weak orphan from Brooklyn who had had to scrape and claw for what he wanted every step of the way, who had had nothing and no one but Bucky, and Bucky- 

“Stevie,” Clint said, voice barely a sigh.

He couldn’t have known that Steve was thinking of Bucky at that moment, didn’t know that Bucky had been the only one to ever call him that before Clint, because Steve even now kept Bucky close and buried and locked away.

“Don’t,” Steve hissed, ashamed to hear his own voice break.

Clint scrubbed a hand over his own face. He was still holding the glass of champagne in his other.

“This is  _ why _ I don’t do the boyfriend experience,” Clint grumbled. “This exact fucking reason.”

Steve wasn’t used to hearing Clint’s tone sour, wasn’t used to his words being this kind of sharp and cruel. They’d played around with humiliation, decided that Steve didn’t mind being told he was a desperate slut for dick (he loved hearing it from Clint’s lips), but anything else made the both of them recoil. 

“Who is he?” Steve had to ask, had to know even though the words felt like broken glass between his teeth.

Clint frowned.

“Who?”

“Who? The guy you’re here with. Who is he?” It was… frankly insulting that Clint was trying to play dumb. Insulting to Steve and to himself. 

Clint sighed and tossed back the rest of his champagne, no care given for the vintage or savoring the liquid. He set the glass down on a nearby table, kept the space between himself and Steve.

“It doesn’t matter, Steve.”

“Bullshit.”

“Steve-”

“You broke your rules for him, Clint.”

Steve sounded petulant, even to his own ears, and  _ fuck _ . Fuck. Fuck. This was not…

This was not the time or the place.

It had been Christmas.

Well, the week before Christmas. The last Thursday before Christmas. Their last Thursday before Clint took a two-week vacation - ‘the beach, Stevie, just me and the sun and shitty mystery novels and those fruity drinks with umbrellas for two weeks’. 

Wax-play, with a green spruce-scented candle and a red cinnamon-scented one, and Clint had indulged Steve, had laid on the bed and spread his naked body wide and let Steve decorate him as he wished. 

But it had been after that, later, when Clint was stretched out and still wet from his shower, when Steve was tracing over the freckles on his back, that it happened.

“Go ahead,” Clint had said, voice a little slurred with sleep, a lot with sex.

“Go ahead and what?” Steve had asked.

“Gimme a mark. Know you wanna.”

Steve’s fingers had stilled, his whole body frozen.

“You said no marks,” he reminded Clint.

“Yeah, but you’re my last - vacation, Stevie. Gimme a good Christmas present. Something to remember you by ‘till I see you again.”

And, of course, Steve Rogers didn’t know how to do anything halfway. By the time Clint pulled on his clothes and left the hotel room two hours later, his golden skin had been littered with bruises, Steve’s mouth and teeth and tongue marking him so thoroughly there was no way Clint wouldn’t be getting second and third glances on the beach for the next two weeks. 

Love bites. 

It’s what Bucky had called them. Had teased Steve with. 

It’s what they were. What they had been then, what they were now.

Steve had entered into this thing with Clint, this once-a-week foray into casual, professional sex because he didn’t want to bother with feelings, with a relationship. He hadn’t wanted the tangle of hurt and happiness that he’d had with Bucky, with Peggy. Steve had wanted something simple, something good and something easy.

Only, it wasn’t.

Not anymore.

Not since Christmas. Not since before then, really. Not since, probably, if Steve was honest with himself, not since that time Steve had gone to Clint asking to be hurt and Clint had said no, had shown Steve he could have and give pleasure and be  _ good _ and be content forgetting, even for just a few hours, that Steve Rogers was also Captain America.

And now…

Now, they were on the dark balcony of Stark Tower, and Steve’s already broken heart, frozen and never really thawed, was crumbling anew.

“Why him?” Steve asked, because he’d never been able to walk away from a fight, had always been a glutton for punishment.

But it was Clint who looked wrecked, Clint whose face was pale and slack, and Clint whose eyes shone dark and wet with pain.

As if summoned, the man - dark hair and impeccable tuxedo and both hands bearing champagne glasses - stepped out onto the balcony.

“There you are,” he said, voice bright and focus on Clint. As if Clint was a pet to be kept on a leash, as if his having been gone for, what - five? Ten? minutes - was too long.

Steve clenched his jaw, bit his own tongue when Clint accepted a champagne flute with one hand and smiled at the man. It was a weak smile, a little bland. Fake. Because Clint was hurt - because Steve had  _ hurt _ Clint.

The man was still smiling when he turned his gaze to Steve.

“Oh! Captain Rogers! It’s an honor to meet you.”

The man held out his hand, and Steve forced himself to take it in his own, forced himself to keep the shake brief and gentle.

“Alex Richards,” the man introduced himself. Steve didn’t know the name, but he made a mental note to sure as hell look the man up later. “How do you know our Clint?”

_ Our Clint _ .

The man’s words cut sharper and deeper than Steve expected.

He had  _ known _ \- had known since the moment he saw Clint - that Clint was a sex worker. Had known that this was his job, and Steve was one of  _ several - many, dozens, hundreds _ \- of clients. He had known that, had reminded himself of that even after his horrible Christmas realization, after admitting to himself that he not only liked Clint, not only appreciated him, but loved him. 

But Steve had never expected to be confronted - so blatantly, so horribly - with the reality. And that it was here, at Stark Tower - Avengers Tower, as Tony insisted on calling it, despite the fact that none of them would - it seemed especially unfair.

“Oh, I’m a fan,” Clint spoke up quickly. “He was just humoring me.”

Richards’ smile was still bright; he clearly didn’t pick up on Clint’s forced flippancy, on the superficial nature of his curved lips.

“Did he show you his tattoo?” Richards asked, and Steve- Steve really couldn’t be expected to just stand here and  _ do this _ , could he?

“Alex,” Clint grumbled. “Shut up.”

But Richards didn’t. 

“He got it as soon as he turned eighteen,” Richards confided, as if Clint’s secrets were his to spill. 

And why the hell did this asshole, this  _ client _ , get to know things about Clint that Steve didn’t? And that… that was a dark, uncomfortable thought, that kind of possessiveness. 

“Not as soon as,” Clint argued, and his cheeks were red. He was embarrassed, and it was a novel enough expression that Steve was momentarily rescued from his own dark and horrible thoughts as he took in the color on Clint’s face.

“Right,” Richards nodded in agreement. “As soon as you got back from Beijing.”

“Beijing?” Steve repeated, not sure why the name of the city stirred him from his stupor, but he latched onto it all the same.

“After the Olympics,” Richards explained.

Steve frowned at Clint, wondering what the hell the Olympics, what Beijing, had to do with anything.

“After he won the gold,” Richards added helpfully.

“In what?” Steve… Steve felt like he had woken up in that room all over again, that facsimile of reality SHIELD had shoved him into and thought he would accept.

“Archery.” Richards was still the one talking, as if Clint wasn’t there, or as if Clint was… his to discuss. “He won the gold in Beijing, and again in London.”

“You’re an Olympic athlete,” Steve said, attention entirely on Clint, words something like an accusation.

“Not anymore,” Clint said, and he wouldn’t meet Steve’s eyes. “Got injured.”

Steve couldn’t help but think of the scar on Clint’s shoulder. Unlike the scar tissue on his knee, which looked at least a decade old, the scar on his shoulder was newer, not the faded white of a childhood injury.

“So now he just lets me parade him around for fundraising events,” Richards grinned and elbowed Clint, who gave him a shaky smile.

“Are you… also an archer?” Steve asked awkwardly.

“Oh, hell no. Clint tried to show me how, once… I think my arrow got about three feet.”

“From him, not from the target,” Clint put in, grinning again, almost happy.

“No, I’m on the board of the Children’s Hospital. Clint comes by when he can, teaches the kids how to menace the doctors and nurses with Nerf arrows.”

“Oh,” Steve said. It was all he could say. The image of Clint spending time with sick kids, teaching them how to shoot toy arrows was at war with the image of Richards and Clint together before him now. 

Richards turned his attention back to Clint, squeezed his shoulder.

“I’ve got to call it a night. I’m going to give my regards to Tony and Pepper. Do you want me to wait for you, or are you going to bask in Captain America’s glow for a while longer?”

Clint flushed and ducked his head. Richards smirked over at Steve, and Steve…

Steve had no idea what to think. Richards was giving Clint the option to stay. Which meant… what, exactly? That Clint had already fulfilled his obligations for the evening? That-

“I, uh, I think I might hang out for a bit longer,” Clint said.

Richards squeezed his arm again, and then held out a hand to Steve.

“Good to meet you again, Captain. Thank you for your service.”

Steve shook his hand, feeling even more out of sorts.

Richards let him go and walked away.

Leaving Steve and Clint once again alone on the balcony.

“What…” Steve didn’t even know where to begin.

“It doesn’t matter, Steve,” Clint said. He sounded tired, sad. Looked it, too. And Steve realized he had never seen Clint like this. Had never seen Clint as anything other than aroused or sated, happy or excited, confident or submissive.

He had only ever seen one part of Clint, the part of Clint that he set aside for Steve. The part that Steve  _ bought _ .

Clint was a shitty liar. And, moreover, Clint was honest. The parts of himself that Steve knew, those were real. Clint might be paid to enjoy his time with Steve, but he  _ did _ enjoy it. That didn’t mean, however, that the man Steve got to hold for a few hours, one night a week, represented the entirety of Clint. 

He was more than that, so very much more.

And Steve felt like the most colossal idiot for ever thinking that he could be satisfied with that tiny sliver of Clint. He wanted, he  _ needed _ , more.

And that was bad. Dangerous, even.

Especially with the way Clint wouldn’t even look at him right now.

“It does matter,” Steve finally said.

Clint’s glare was immediate and fierce. Another new expression.

“It’s my personal life, Steve. It’s not-”

“It’s none of my business,” Steve interrupted, hands held out in what was hopefully a placating gesture, “but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter.” Clint’s brows drew together at those words, but he didn’t try to speak and he didn’t turn away, so Steve rushed ahead. “You have a whole life, outside of me - outside of us. I get that.” Well, he got it  _ now _ , at least. “I… I’m sorry.”

Clint arched one eyebrow.

“You’re sorry? For what?”

Steve shoved his hands in his pockets, shrugged his shoulders, still felt about five feet tall.

“For being dumb enough not to remember that.”

Clint huffed out a breath.

“Steve…” he trailed off, shook his head, and set down his champagne, this time untouched. “Stevie, I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Good,” Steve said around a too-tight throat. “I don’t want you to hurt me, either. Not really in the mood for it tonight.”

Clint’s lips twisted a bit, wry and wan. He ran his hands through his hair, shuddered out a sigh.

“Steve, I don’t really know what to do here, okay? I don’t know what you- This kind of thing isn’t really covered in the handbook, you know?”

“There’s a handbook?” Steve asked, before his brain properly processed all of what Clint had said. “What kind of thing?”

Clint gave him a look - a familiar one, this time. Half-irritation, half-adoration. It was one of Steve’s favorite Clint looks, one of the ones he hoarded and pulled out to turn over in his memories on the nights when he felt most alone, when he was cold and the world around him was too loud and alien.

“This- I- Steve…” Clint growled then, sounding frustrated, but not in the way he did when Steve had him tied up and wouldn’t let him come. “Steve, you gotta know I’m crazy about you. That I- I’ve got it bad, Stevie.”

And Steve… had absolutely not known that. Not at all.

“Oh,” was all he could manage.

It made Clint laugh, but it wasn’t a pleasant sound. It was twisted, dark and cold, and nothing like the laughter Clint gave Steve so often.

“Yeah. ‘Oh’. Look, Steve - Alex is a friend. I didn’t break the rules for him. I don’t break the rules for anyone, okay? We met at a thing years ago, back when I was still… whatever. He doesn’t know about my job these days. No one here does. ‘Cept you. Here, I’m just… a has-been Olympian, okay? And you - Steve.” Clint stopped himself. He drew in a deep breath and shook his head. “I’ll call the agency, okay? Tell them you want to see someone else and-”

“No,” Steve interrupted, his own voice startling him with its volume. “Please, please, don’t do that.”

Clint finally looked at him, met his gaze head-on and stared, transfixed by whatever he saw in Steve’s eyes.

“I don’t want anyone else,” Steve assured him. “I want you. Just you. I- I’m crazy about you, too, Clint.” He forced a smile. “You think  _ you’ve  _ got it bad?”

Clint was still staring - which was better than him not staring, but it wasn’t as good as him doing any number of other things, from throwing himself into Steve’s arms to kissing him to laughing for real again. Or saying anything at all.

Steve licked his lips.

“Come home with me?” he asked.

Another furrow of Clint’s brows.

“You’re going back to DC tonight? It’s like eleven o’clock, Steve. You-”

“No, I’m staying the night. I have a place - an apartment. Here, at the Tower.”

“Oh. Oh.”

“Yeah.”

Clint bit his bottom lip, and he had done that before, had teased Steve with it quite deliberately on more than one occasion. But this wasn’t that.

“It’s not Thursday,” Clint said softly.

Steve nodded in agreement.

“Is that okay?” he asked Clint.

And Clint did laugh then, the bright, rich sound that made Steve’s heart skip a beat.

“Yeah, baby, it’s okay.”

-o-

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I'm thinking a few more of just Clint and Steve - after all, we've got a whole new dynamic now!! And then adding Bucky to the mix.
> 
> Hey, I have no idea WHY, but for some reason I just... don't feel it when it comes to writing explicit sex with this setup. I'm sorry, I know there are people out there who wish I didn't keep fading to black on them but... I dunno. I promise there's so so much porn in the other things I write if that's what you need tho.


End file.
